


Shopping Malls and Parking Lots

by ajkal2



Series: Doorsteps-verse (aka that one where dave runs away to roses) [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Past Child Abuse, lets go to THE MALL (the mall) today, sibling bonding yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5024803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajkal2/pseuds/ajkal2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave and Rose go shopping. Thats it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shopping Malls and Parking Lots

As time goes by with no sign Bro’s even noticed you gone, you relax. You and Rose paint each others nails (you get blue with glitter, and give her a different colour on each finger), and she knits you a scarf (purple with little white moons, you love it) and you get used to living with someone who acknowledges your existence in more than occasional grunts and beating you up. You bet Rose 10 bucks you can climb up onto the roof of the house, and she raises an eyebrow and says she’ll give you 20, she tried for years as a kid. You smirk, bounce on your toes, roll your neck, take a run-up, and scale the building in under a minute, laughing at her screeches whenever you do something like hang from her windowsill with one hand. She still owes you.

 

Sometimes, (often) you jolt awake in the middle of the night, gasping for breath, with the shadows attacking you, but you go downstairs and Rose’s Mom makes you the best hot chocolate ever. The two of you sit and talk until Rose emerges from her bedroom, and then the three of you have breakfast.

 

You stay up till midnight with them on New Years, and wonder if Bros doing his usual thing and partying with his mates until early in the morning. You watch the fireworks on TV, as Rose’s Mom (she says call me Roxy or just Mom is fine, but you can’t help but think of her as Rose’s Mom) snores on the couch and Rose sits peacefully beside you.

 

You tell Jade why you’re at Roses. She sends you sad faces and virtual hugs, but mostly doesn’t change, and you are grateful when she doesn’t mention it again after, though she apparently checks up on you via Rose.

 

You tell John why you’re at Roses. He goes quiet for a minute or two, and then you have to talk him out of getting his Dad to drive to New York and pick you up so that you can live with him. You arrange to meet up in the summer instead. You’re looking forward to it.

 

Rose’ll be going back to school in a week, and she says that you’ll be going with her. Theres only been one semester of high school, so you should be OK with a bit of catching up.

 

Your middle school was a shitty public one in Houston. You’re not sure what to expect.

 

\--------

 

School starts in a week, and Dave has hardly got any equipment for it. You can share things like pens and rulers, but Dave doesn’t have any clothes, or folders, or... anything really. He’s been scraping by, wearing his hoodie almost every day and never letting those stupid aviators leave his face. You drag him out of the house for a long-needed shopping trip, and he moans all the way into town, but the type of moaning which means he doesn’t really mind.

 

“My feet are about to fall right the fuck off, why do you live in the middle of nowhere Rose? Why? You and your Mom, just living out in the middle of the forest like those wild Amazonian rainforest people, hunting snakes for meat and wearing leaves to cover your boobs-” he mumbles, voice muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face. You may have overdone that one on the length, but at least it's warm.

 

“If we don’t get this shopping trip done, you’ll be the one wearing leaves. It’s not much further, just over the ridge.” you say, cutting him off before he can get properly going. You’ve learnt he can ramble on for hours, just muttering nonsense to himself in the corner of the room, and you guess it’s a habit that comes from being alone.

 

“You said that half an hour ago.” he mutters skeptically, scuffing his battered shoes against the surface of the road.

 

“Look for yourself, if you doubt my all-seeing wisdom.” You point as the two of you crest the ridge, and he stops to take in the town. You walk on, stepping up onto the pavement, and he jogs to catch up, sneaking furtive glances around.

 

It takes another 5 minutes to get to the mall in the outskirts of town, and once there you find the Marshalls and stride (no pun intended) in. Dave seems out of place: he shifts on his feet, and his face has switched off. You walk over to the male section, flipping through tops idly and watching him out of the corner of your eye as he trails behind you like a puppy. Definitely uncomfortable. You turn to him, holding out a red top you found, and quirk an eyebrow in question.

 

He just stares blankly at it, then at you. You sigh. “You can’t steal my stuff forever, pick out what you want. I’ve got Mom’s credit card, go nuts.” You turn back to the rack, hoping he’ll take the hint and look with you. He hesitates, and then strolls nonchalantly (it’s forced: his shoulders are tense) over to the pants section. He stares at the rack for a moment, then smirks and holds up some purple sequined monstrosity to show you. You roll your eyes. You have some work to do.

 

\-----

 

You end up coming out of the store with a selection of t-shirts, mostly picked by Rose, two new pairs of jeans, a thick wooly jumper (“I hate knitting the sleeves, but you need something warm.”) and earmuffs. You don’t even really know what earmuffs are, but apparently they’re ‘in’ right now and essential for completing your outfit. You guess they... match your scarf? They’re purple. They look kinda like headphones, but there’s no cord. You stare at them for a moment, trying to find a use for them. Rose snatches them out of your hand, and puts them on your head. She nods approvingly. You frown.You don’t see the point to them.

 

Rose grabs your (now gloved) hand, and tugs you along, peering into the stores. She ends up outside an expensive-looking electronics one, looking it up and down critically before stepping inside. You follow her like a bemused sheep, muttering to yourself about earmuffs. Then you actually realise where you are following her, and screech to a halt. She keeps walking, then notices you’re not beside her and turns, a question on her face.

 

“What?” she asks.

 

“Nope.” you answer, short and sweet.

 

“It’s a store Dave, it’s not going to bite you.” she replies, sarcasm dripping from every word.

 

“Iunno, you can never tell with these new ones, could be the mouth of a monster disguised as a innocent store, and I don’t fancy being digested today tyvm.” you bullshit, just letting your mouth do what it wants.

 

“Do not speak internet acronyms aloud. We’ve had this discussion. Several times.” she says, eyebrows stern. The two of you have indeed had this discussion several times.

 

“Idk man, have we?” you rib her just to see her bristle, but she doesn’t oblige.

 

“Dave.” She can make that one word sound like ice dripping down the back of your neck. You put more effort into your poker face.

 

“That’s the name, don’t wear it out.” you reply to fill the silence.

 

“What is it?” she asks.

 

“What’s what? Gotta be specific Rose, don’t want anyone to make a wrong guess at what you’re getting at-” you ramble, not wanting to answer her question.

 

“Dave, why don’t you want to go get a new laptop so you don’t always steal mine?” she specifies, but you can tell by her narrow eyes she could tell you were just avoiding the question.

 

“...Dude I’ve already got all this new stuff that must have cost a bomb and I don’t wanna be in debt all my life, shits not cool.” you eventually get out, looking anywhere but her.

 

“Hmm. Alright.” she says, and proceeds to keep dragging you into the store.

 

“Rose, no.” you protest, yanking backwards.

 

“Not for you. My old laptop is really slow, so I’m getting myself a new one. And it would be a waste to throw one away, so you can have the old one.” she throws back over her shoulder.

 

“Oh.” You let her drag you into the store. You know she’s just bullshitting, but… that helps.

 

She picks one out (the guy says it has 30GB of RAM and a 4GHz quad-core processor but you’re sure she picked it because the case is purple), and you find yourself in the camera section. They have a good selection, and you drool over the lens attachments and zoom ratios just like you used to in the Canon store in Houston. You scraped up enough money for a shit digital one, and filled up the memory card in about a week. Bro came in drunk one night and smashed it, slurring about the government watching him. You didn’t replace it.

 

\----------  

 

Dave gets a particular furrow between his eyes when he’s thinking about his Bro. The rest of his face is perfectly blank, but his forehead creases slightly, and he goes very still. You pay for ‘your’ new laptop (a pathological aversion to money being spent on him is added to your mental list of Dave's quirks), and when you glance up you see him silhouetted against the racks of lenses, and in the reflection of the screen beaming adverts you see that furrow. He looks relaxed, to the outward eye. Hands in his pockets, new coat open and face blank as a sheet of paper. But that little furrow speaks volumes to any trained mind. You announce yourself with a cough as you come up behind him; the first time you snuck up on him he just stopped himself from punching you in the face and then almost had a panic attack. He turns, and you gesture for him to follow you out the store.

 

“What was it this time?” You keep your voice soft, try not to spook him.

 

“...Just some stupid fucking thing he broke.”

 

“A camera?”

 

“It was stupid. It’s fine.”

 

“I sincerely doubt that, but I’ll drop it for now. You need things for school.”

 

You rush through the rest of your trip, getting Dave pens and books and everything else he needs. He lags and dawdles, soliloquizing the pencil cases and dragging his feet around the store.

 

It starts snowing as you leave, and Dave tilts his head and stares at the sky (his new earmuffs have records on the sides, they suit him well). He’s probably never seen snow fall before.

 

“You’re meant to catch one on your tongue. For luck,” you tell him, and sure enough he opens his mouth to try and the snowflake hits him on the nose. You giggle, and he glares at you behind his shades and goes for another. It drifts onto his chin at the last second.

 

“Dammit!” The third splats onto his shades, and the fourth his cheek. You’re laughing aloud now, as he spots his next victim and bobs and weaves underneath it, before snapping it up and turning to you with a grin on his face (slightly crooked from lack of practice). “Got it!”

 

You applaud, and he bows theatrically. You hold his eyes for a second (you can't get him to take the sunglasses off, however you try), and then you both snicker for a few minutes.

  
The two of you bicker about the purpose and functionality of earmuffs the entire way home.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so this is mainly based on my holiday to NYC so if anything is not right TELL ME. also yes this is kinda a filler but its what happened so


End file.
